


Soul Searching (The Hop, Skip, Jump Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers but not really, Dream Vision, Getting Together, M/M, Marriage, Multiverse, Referenced Pepper Potts/Tony Stark - Freeform, Referenced Rumiko Fujikawa/Tony Stark, Remix, Sexual Content, Strangers to Lovers, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:53:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22843567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Tony lives a peaceful live in Irondale and then Steve Rogers drifts into town. It's the beginning of a romance — and not all is what it seems.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 98
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Exchange





	1. Idyllic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SweetFanfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetFanfics/gifts).
  * Inspired by [a hop, skip, and a jump](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648331) by [IronSwordStarShield (SweetFanfics)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetFanfics/pseuds/IronSwordStarShield). 



> Remix of the wonderful and amazing story [a hop, skip, and a jump ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648331) by [SweetFanfics ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetFanfics/pseuds/IronSwordStarShield)!

Someone — he doesn’t remember who, his dad, Arno, an ex — told Tony he’d never be happy living the simple life away from New York. Whoever it was who said it, they meant the life away from home, money, the Stark name. They meant the life in a small town a two hour drive away from the city where he'd grown up and miles away from the party life in California he’d excelled at for a while. 

But every morning he gets up, drives into Irondale, gets his coffee and _enjoys_ his life here. Everyone knows him here — and not because he’s eccentric billionaire Tony Stark, but because everyone knows everyone here and that’s how it’s always been. And he’s not the only eccentric anyway. He’s just one of the characters in this town.

They all are.

Irondale — a small close-knit community where everyone knows everything about everyone, where everyone has their daily lives and problems, where people help each other and get on each other’s nerves, where some fit in and some stand out — and life goes on, things change and yet always stay the same.

He loves it.

This is home and he’s been welcome here since he’d stumbled into town as a confused boy not sure where to go or where to make his mark in life.

He loves it any day of the week, but Wednesdays are the best.

Rhodey will drop by and...

He’s looking at his phone to see if Rhodey has sent him a message. He blames it on the lack of coffee in his system that he nearly runs into someone on the sidewalk, is caught by the arm before he can stumble backwards onto the street — that’s empty anyway this time of morning. When he looks up his eyes meet a startled blue gaze and the exceptional face of a stranger in a checkered flannel shirt and jeans and a leather jacket that makes it all interesting. 

The man seems startled. He’s staring at Tony, mouth opening slightly as if he’s about to say something.

Tony smiles. “Sorry, my fault. Didn’t have my coffee yet.”

“That’s alright,” the stranger says, and something about his voice gives Tony deja-vu. Goosebumps run up and down his back and he watches in startled fascination -- because there’s a spark of _something_ right there in the eyes, the expression, the hesitant smile. 

If it’s interesting, then Tony admits he’s feeling the spark too.

“Do I know you?” he asks and wonders.

The man shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”

Tony nods and smiles, trying for polite and not overtly -- obviously if Nicole or Nick or Jan see him eying a man in the street the attempts at matchmaking will be hell to pay. 

He walks towards Nick’s Diner without looking back, but is aware that the man’s eyes are following him until he’s inside. 

“Coffee, black?” Nick, the town’s own war veteran turned grumpy, one-eyed bar owner who runs the place like boot camp, asks before Tony’s even close to the counter. 

“Is that a question?”

“It’s your order,” Nick states. 

It is. Every morning.

“Can I get pancakes?”

Nick points at the menu as if to say, “duh.”

By the time Tony sits by the table in the corner, coffee in front of him, laptop open, and looks back out he’s surprised at the tiny pang of regret because the stranger is gone.

 _Small town life_ , he thinks and grins to himself. _Even a stranger is excitement._

* * *

Two days later he enters Nick’s, half in thought because Reed Richards has asked him to speak at a tech conference but Pepper has reminded him that he needs to finish their prototype for the Resilient presentation before that. She’s on the hunt for reliable investors and he can’t let her down. She gave up a safe if unexciting job at Stark Industries to come work with him. He feels he owes it to her to always put their venture first.

“He gets coffee, black. But only the one, then you cut him off,” Nick barks and Tony’s head snaps up to come face to face with someone not-Nick behind the counter. Someone new.

Someone he knows.

 _Someone I met before_ , he thinks and feels that’s more significant than _Good Looking guy I bumped into on the street._

“Hi,” Mr. Goodlooking says and smiles brightly, “it’s good to see you again. I’ll get you whatever you want.”

Nick’s standing in the kitchen door drying a cup and tells Tony: “No, he won’t. This is Steve. He doesn’t know how things work here yet, and he’s got to learn when to cut you off.”

Tony completely ignores the jibe. “Steve?” 

“Steve Rogers,” the man introduces himself and smiles the same bright smile, meeting Tony’s eyes. It seems Nick’s gruff demeanor doesn’t faze the new employee at all. That alone makes Tony grin. 

He holds out his hand across the counter.

“Tony Stark,” he says, not sure what to expect. People know about him in tech circles, but he’s been out of the tabloids for nearly a decade now.

“I know,” Steve says and shakes his hand, grins back. 

Tony’s not sure why _that_ makes the hairs on his neck stand on end. There’s this exciting sense of deja-vu again that makes his inside tingle like someone has stabbed into an ant hill. It’s exciting, unpleasant and makes his heart jump painfully in his chest.

He knows attraction and the sweet thunder of that first sparking interest hitting you hard enough to make you weak in the knees.

Life in Irondale has just become a little more exciting again.

* * *

“He’s smiling at you,” Pepper informs him over the rim of her huge mug of coffee.

“He’s Steve,” Tony says and jots down another correction on the sheet before he passes it back over to Pepper. “He’s always friendly.”

“He’s extra friendly with you,” Pepper points out and keeps grinning behind her mug, eyes wrinkling with tell-tale amusement.

Tony looks up as if compelled.

Steve’s drying some dishes behind the counter, but when Tony looks at him, his eyes go up and he smiles with his whole face.

Tony’s caught be the cheerful expression, but doesn’t want to stare, so he nods and pulls himself away, eyes returning down to stare into his coffee instead.

Pepper gives him a significant look. “You do realize he’s flirting with you, Tony?” she whispers.

“Why would he do that?”

Steve Rogers is new to town and everyone is taking an interest, of course. But nobody even knows if he’s here to stay, or if he’s just drifting. Tony has learned to guard his heart against these possible disappointments — attraction be damned.

* * *

They meet at the small market.

They see each other every day for morning coffee. Not Thursdays though, that’s Steve’s day off and when he goes driving with his motorcycle. 

They meet in Hartford by accident twice and find out they have a shared love for Italian food.

* * *

It’s strange to Tony that he knows next to nothing about Steve, but always feels comfortable with him. He looks forward to seeing him, bantering over coffee and breakfast choices, squabbling over . 

“Good morning, Tony,

“So why Irondale?”

“Why?”

“Why did you decide to stay? Where are you from?”

Steve leans back in his chair and watches Tony with a poignant smile. “I’m just a boy from Brooklyn.”

There it’s again, that sense of deja-vu that makes the hairs on his neck rise — a shockwave of confused emotion and Tony’s enthralled. “There’s a story there?”

“Yes,” Steve says. “I’ll tell you one day.”

It sounds like he means a day in their far future.

Tony knows the future could be unpredictable — even for someone like himself who tries to anticipate future trends and developments before they fully crystallize. But he knows for sure he wants to be there when Steve’s ready to tell him the full story. “I’d like that,” he says and smiles.

* * *

Steve is nice to everyone. The community welcomes him with open arms and soon he’s part of Irondale just as if he’s always been there.

Nick becomes less grumpy, lets Steve take over more shifts and Tony finds himself working at the diner more often than in his little home office or the Resilient facilities. 

Carol asks him to help out her friend’s kid Miles with his math grades and before long Tony finds himself with a new reason to be at the dinner twice a week during Steve’s shift.

“Math study group?” Steve asks before he hands him a bagel on a plate and watches, Miles, Kamala, Sam and Riri at the table discussing the geometry problem he left them with. 

“Sort of,” he says. “Riri’s smart enough to do the tutoring without me she just hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“That she’s that smart?”

“No, that she knows. The explaining to others part is what we’re working on.”

They watch the kids together before Tony looks over to say thanks and rejoin the group.

When he looks, Steve’s not watching the kids anymore but him and there’s the poignant smile again. “You’re good with kids, Tony. It’s amazing.”

“Thanks,” he says, feeling heat rise to his cheeks for no reason at all.

* * *

“So,” Janet asks. “Do you like Steve?”

“He’s impossibly perfect and sweet,” he says easily. He’s had this conversation with half the town already. “Who wouldn’t like him?”

Janet laughs her usual joyful laugh and links her arm into his. “A fool,” she says and winks, “that's who.”

* * *

He doesn’t get it. Subtle touches, banter, their hands brushing together here and there when plates and cups of coffee are passed over, smiles and shared laughter and challenging comments — all of it feels familiar and comfortable and yet nerve wracking.

 _Stop reading into it_ , he chides himself when he sees Steve laugh with Carol, exchanging opinions about motorcycles and the best roads for a tour. 

It’s Steve.

He’s amiable and open.

“Is he flirting with my girlfriend?” Rhodey asks and Tony grins. He’s glad his friend is here for a few days on leave. 

“Don’t worry,” Tony says. “He’s not flirting. Friendly guy, that’s all.”

As if prompted, Steve appears at the side of their table to refill their cups with steaming hot coffee and presents a plate with muffins. “I saved you a poppy seed muffin, Tony. I know they’re your favorites.”

Rhodey stares, arms folded in front of himself, eyebrow raised.

“You’re the best!” Tony exclaims, happy that Steve himself just proved his point.

* * *

Two days later Tony reaches over the counter for the coffee pot to give himself a refill. Nick is nowhere in sight and Steve’s occupied with cleaning the counter and so he sees a chance to get his coffee without being called out on having had too much already…

His and is caught at the wrist and he blinks, surprised at the strong fingers forming a circle around his limb.

Next thing he’s pulled forward hard enough that he loses his balance and lets go of the pot. He crashes nose first into Steve who has leaned in for kiss. The sound of shattering glass doesn’t even register when the kiss starts with their teeth crashing together painfully — but Steve kisses him firmly and holds him there for a moment, eyes squeezed shut when Tony’s must be wide as saucers.

“Moron,” Steve says when he pulls back. “Can’t you catch a hint?”

“Hint?”

“ _I like you_ , Tony. Message received?”

He touches his lips. 

_Something impossible has happened._

_Why does it feel that way? Steve’s here. He likes you. You like him..._

He leans back in to kiss Steve back.

Everything seems possible now.

* * *

“Told you,” Janet whispers. The town has organized a spontaneous summer gathering around the gazebo in the square. Nobody outright mentions it, but Tony knows they’re here to celebrate and tease the newest couple in town.

He doesn’t mind one bit.

He feels like celebrating too.

* * *

There’s no question of Tony giving up his beloved little house for an apartment over Janet’s garage. 

Steve moves in and it just falls into place.

Sharing a home just clicks.

They move around each other in the kitchen as if they’ve done it for years. Everything from cooking together in the morning to falling asleep watching TV with his head leaning against Steve’s shoulder… it all feels like it’s _always been this way_. 

Sex is surprising and exhilarating. 

Steve — kind and bantering Steve who works in a diner and never leaves town, never shows anything but kindness — is stronger than he lets on even when he helps around town. He leaves marks on Tony during their first love making — fingerprints and bitemarks — that stay for nearly a week. He hauls Tony up and against the wall to fuck him with his legs dangling in the air with nothing but his brute strength to hold him up. It’s the opposite of tender, not entirely what he expects from kind, lighthearted Steve, but so passionate and bleeding a need that sweeps Tony away — and then comes the realization it’s _exactly_ what he expects from Steve even though he isn’t sure why.

A cushion gets ripped when he gives Steve a blow job.

The shower valve breaks during a morning session under the hot water.

“I’m sorry, sorry, so sorry,” Steve whispers through moans and groans but can’t help it and Tony meets begs him: “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t you dare stop.” He feels Steve’s fingers settle possessively at his hip.

Slow, lazy lovemaking in bed or on the sofa comes after the first weeks of passion, when Tony sets the pace for something else — pressing Steve into the mattress for once and riding him until he comes, interlacing their fingers all the time to make sure there’s no other touching.

But there seems to be a need in Steve to hold him, make sure he’s there and save and won’t just slip away and he shows it with small gestures and caresses, by kissing Tony's cheek or wrapping his arms around him for a short hug when they’re busy in the house.

They wake up curled together in the mornings and go to bed like that too.

Tony has never known as much warmth and love in his life.

* * *

“I love you,” whispers in his ear during breakfast.

Tony turns to kiss him hard. He knows, of course, has always known, maybe from the start, but hearing it means the world.

“Never leave me,” Tony says back and holds Steve’s gaze, their noses nearly touching — and he’s overwhelmed by the neediness he’s showing.

“Never,” Steve says. 

And later he mumbles something that may have been: “Never again.”

* * *

Steve has nightmares. 

He never tells Tony what they’re about, but Tony picks up on them but never presses the issue.

Until one fateful night when Steve’s tossing and turning wakes him. “Tony,” he’s calling in his sleep. 

It’s all it takes to make up Tony’s mind. He shakes Steve’s shoulder, tries to wake him — and promptly finds himself thrown out of bed, Steve’s strong body pressed down on his with the threat of violence he’s never seen in him, an arm pressed down hard on Tony’s jugular.

He doesn't dare move, caught like a deer in the headlights by the wildness in Steve’s gaze. Then the dream bleeds away and Steve pushes himself away and off Tony with astonishing quickness, comes to sit with his back against the bed just staring at Tony.

“Want to talk about this?” Tony asks softly. His heart is beating fast and he imagines that this is what it’s like to be deathly afraid. 

He spent enough of his life around the military though to know something is up here. He knows about PTSD and trauma.

Steve’s nostrils flare and then he reaches out carefully, as if he expects Tony to flinch away. But Tony doesn’t move out of the way. There’s no need to be afraid now that Steve’s mind is clear. He allows Steve to pull him into a hug and returns it, listens to Steve’s ragged breathing as he whispers, “Sorry, sorry, you’re okay, you’re okay, we’re okay,” rocking them on the spot until he’s convinced this is real and nothing has happened to Tony.

* * *

Tony asks Steve about it a handful of times and the answers remain vague. He hears about tours he’s taken, about the life of a soldier. But the bits and pieces make it sound like much of the time in between can’t be told. Whether Steve can’t talk about it or isn’t allowed to, remains a mystery.

Carol whispers: “Ex-CIA? I dated an agent once.”

Rhodey shrugs. He looks a little worried on Tony’s behalf.

* * *

Nothing like it happens ever again. Tony wakes Steve from another nightmare and it ends in kissing and making out and the most sensual lovemaking. He doesn’t go to the Resilient facilities the next day and Steve calls in sick so they can remain in bed, curled around each other.

* * *

Steve buys the rings and Tony says yes without even having to think about it. Marriage is simple. They go to the county clerk’s office, exchange their vows with Janet, Carol, Nick and Rhodey present and tell their other friends later.

Sam and Pepper are waiting back in town with the surprise reception.

“Husband,” Steve whispers in his ear like it’s a magical word. Tony grabs his hand and squeezes his fingers.

* * *

Tony’s the one who has dreams for a while, waking Steve and their fat red tabby cat Friday. 

He can never clearly remember what these dreams are about.

Sometimes he’s flying, sometimes falling. Sometimes there’s explosions and his chest feels like it’s burning and he can’t breathe. Sometimes Steve’s calling his name from far away.

He wakes with the strangest laughter in his head. Menacing and mocking.

Nothing about it makes sense.

* * *

Tony comes home from Resilient on a Wednesday. Friday is meowing in the kitchen where Steve’s busy moving things around. Then Friday rounds the corner to come and greet him at the door and snuggles against his legs before leading him back to the kitchen. 

“Tony?” Steve calls before Tony can see him. “I’ve ordered pizza. I hope you’re hungry, _shel...._ ”

Steve catches himself, his eyes widen when his eyes find Tony, but it’s Tony who feels the door keys slip from his hand and fall to the floor. He stares at them, his hand is shaking. Sweat breaks out.

_Shellhead._

_Flashes of red and gold. Red, white and blue._

Steve’s holding a round white plate and the only thing it brings to mind is a shield, big and perfectly round.

He nearly stumbles.

“Tony?” Steve asks alarmed.

“What were you about to say?”

“Sweet…”

“No, you were about to say _shellhead_. You were about to call me…”

“Tony!” Steve calls and he looks even more alarmed now, makes a step forward to catch him by the arm.

The moment they touch, it all comes back in one clear stream of returning memory. 

_Kang laughing somewhere. It’s not the Kang he knows. A woman…_

_He hears Arno saying: “Best for everyone. He won’t find his way back?”_

_“This will shoot him cleanly through space and time. Not even I would be able to find him again. And inside the tube — who knows he might never wake again to even try and get back.”_

_“Good,” Arno says. A different Reed — not his friend — is laughing somewhere too. “Stark Industries is yours. Stark is dead. Long live Stark.”_

He opens his eyes and there’s Steve. “I died,” he said and it’s not the memory he of Kang and Reed and Arno he can’t place but a memory of blood seeping from a chest wound. He’s lying limply in Steve’s arms who repeats over and over again: “Don’t die, shellhead. Don’t die. We need to stop that dying thing.”

Steve turns white like a sheet. “You died. Thanos… He…”

He pulls Tony into an embrace. “How did I die? Again? Did I die? What happened?”

“Thanos,” Steve whispered. “He came for the stones again. He took over before we could even stop it… The Avengers… Carol, Janet, Thor… Do you remember? Tony you used the gauntlet and...”

“I died,” Tony said, and he feels the floor shake beneath his feet. Voices ring in his ears but he can’t identify the language. What is it he’s hearing?

He doesn’t remember it like that. He remembers falling, blood, Kangs, different Kangs and a Reed, too young to be their Reed. 

He stares at Steve. “How are you here? How do you know this? Cap? How did we end up here?”

“I was hoping to find you,” Steve said softly. “I was looking for you. I think I’m still trapped. But I found you.”

It makes no sense and yet everything is clear. 

Friday whines and her outline turns into a red glow of a projected cat — and the edges of Tony’s vision turn blurry. 

“Don’t leave me,” Tony says. “Never leave me.”

“I lost you,” Steve said softly. “I lost you, but here we found each other and… I’m sorry…”

The words sound like a thunder clap in his mind and with a painful gasp…

… he comes awake.


	2. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wakes. The search for Steve is only beginning.

The people pulling him from the pod look like Kree at first — but they have elongated limbs and eyes that glitter like the night sky. They introduce themselves as the Suhl’aar. They have never seen a human.

“Earth burned 2000 cycles ago,” his doctor explains. “There are no humans left in this galaxy or any other.”

“How?”

“War,” she explains and looks at him with her dark unreadable star eyes. “War against a power from outside the stars, they say. A firebird burning out with the planet. A legend. Myth. Who knows.”

The Phoenix Force, Tony thought, had come for their planet again.

* * *

Tony can barely stand. He’s weak and pale and his muscles have forgotten how to carry weight. 

“Man out of time,” he mutters to himself.

“No,” a tall Suhl’aar with black hair says from the door. His uniform and posture tell Tony he’s talking to the Suhl’aar commander this time. His doctor warned him the man wanted to hear his story himself. “You’re not from here. Not out of time. You’re in the wrong universe all together.”

Bits and pieces of remembered memories return.

Is this what Steve felt when he woke from the ice?

* * *

Recovery takes weeks but he’s back on his feet finally.

“I’m still Iron Man,” he mutters. “Whatever the fuck happened. I’m still Iron Man.”

With the help of his new friends he takes apart the pod, tries to figure out what it is and who made it. The name Stark is stamped all over it.

His name. The name of his adopted father. 

The name of a brother who blamed him for being the adopted son who stole everything.

But he recognizes the tech. Some is his own. Some is Dream Vision tech developed by Ty Stone a long time ago. It had trapped him in a dream to make sure he wouldn’t find a way out of this before he’d been lost in a universe. How long had he been under? How long had he dreamed of a Steve who might not exist anywhere.

“What are you going to do?” Dan’gaar asks. She’s the head scientist and takes notes on everything he does for their archives. He’s a historical artifact

“I’ll build myself armor and find a way to travel the multiverse. How hard can it be?”

He knows full well that messing with time and space could have repercussions but he had lived a perfect life — and he wants the part of it back that’s most important.

_Coming for you, Cap._

* * *

He meets a Stephen Strange who knows of no other heroes. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a multiverse compass, Doc?”

* * *

He meets a blacksmith entrepreneur in the Wild West — a Tony Stark who is building up from the ground. 

“He died,” he says. “Was shot in cold blood out there in the street. You’re saying there’s more of us out there.” 

Tony can’t answer. He shrugs. “An infinite number.”

The man laughs. “Makes me want to take up the drink all over again.

* * *

On his eleventh trip, he meets a female Steve. She’s fierce and perfect. 

“Your eyes are the wrong color,” she tells him before she sends him back on his search with a kiss.

* * *

When he dreams now he dreams of Irondale and Steve, of their peaceful home. Home becomes a concept more than the location of the right place in the multiverse.

Sometimes he dreams that Steve’s talking to him but then he wakes up without catching the words.

* * *

He grows tired of travelling by the time that he meets a Steve who is as perfect as he remembers — and married to Natasha Stark who is him, just twenty times more beautiful and grounded. No wonder her Steve married her.

“You could stay,” she offers.

“Would you stay in my place?”

She shook her head immediately. “Not a second longer than I had to.”

Her lab was the same kind of ordered chaos he preferred and he found he knew his way around in his sleep. 

“Which one are you looking for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dream Vision Steve or real Steve?”

He ponders that question. “My Steve,” he answers and isn’t sure it matters which one it’ll be in the end. 

She nods, understanding his dilemma better than any Steve or Tony he’d met so far.

“You never dared to hope, because you thought you didn’t deserve him. Now you live this life with him… How can you stop?”  
And it is true: He can’t. He won’t stop searching.

* * *

A string of world later he sits on a porch with Pepper Potts drinking iced tea. A twelve year old girl with dark brown eyes but Tony’s features keeps staring at him as if he’s a revelation and his eyes drift back to hers time and time again — because to him she is one. Her name is Morgan Stark and he wonders who had given her the name of his annoying cousin.

“It’s always you and him, is it?” Pepper asks. She sighs. 

“Me and him?”

“You're looking for Captain America, aren’t you? Steve?”

He shrugs, not sure why her eyes are even sadder now than when she looked at him before. “I’m looking for where I belong.”

* * *

“We could make room for you here,” Rumiko suggests. She and Rhodey had built on the Iron Man legacy after this world's Avengers had died defending the world. She’s Iron Man now and wears the new armor with pride. 

It’s good to see her.

Yet it hurts.

He remembers loving her, losing her, wanting her back… and yet he won’t stay.

“We need you,” she says. “Don’t you see?”

He presses a kiss to her check and shakes his head. “Never doubt yourself, Ru. You were always amazing. This world will be safe without me.”

“Where will you go then?”

“Who knows?” Tony grins reassuringly at her. “Don’t worry about me. I might not know where I’m going, but I know exactly who I’m going to.”

* * *

There’s a universe where Tony’s evil and the world suffers. There’s a world where Tony’s trying to find a cure for a deteriorating Captain America, one where an older Steve with sad eyes tells him about how Tony died years ago from heart failure. Most universes he visits have Avengers, heroes, powers.

Some don’t.

He nearly gets trapped for good by a Steve Rogers who is leading the HYDRA Empire and nearly settled down on an earth where he finds no trace of Avengers, Starks or SHIELD or HYDRA.

* * *

He meets Tony Stark, explorer and ingenious engineer. He has his own adventure magazine and Pepper writes stories about their weird tales. 

It’s that Tony who tells him about a Hydra lab that he’s been trying to get to. “Super soldiers,” he says. “A pod like yours fell from the sky and they think from what they found inside they can make super soldiers.”

He knows no Steve Rogers in this time — but Tony looks at the calendar. They still might meet when Steve joins up for project Rebirth. 

“Aren’t we working on super soldiers?” he asks out of curiosity. 

The other Tony, ruggedly handsome, pats the huge armor he’s working on on the side. “We have Iron Man.”

Tony shrugs. “A Cap never hurts.”

“Cap?”

“You’ll see,” Tony says. “One day.”

First he’s going to help this Iron Man get into the lab to see what the rumours are all about.

This world Jarvis watches him critically as he climbs into his ever changing armor. These days it’s back and gold again but he’ll need to get to a better world for upgrades soon.

With his help, the raid is a piece of cake. 

And when they break open the heavy doors to the inner lab his breath catches in his throat. 

He knows the shape of that pod.

He knows the man inside.

He pushes up the faceplate and rushes in before the other Tony can stop him. 

It’s Steve.

He’s dressed in the Captain America uniform Tony remembers. He doesn’t need the armor running the relevant scans to know that his is the Steve from his world, sent to the multiverse, trapped just like Tony. Someone had needed them out of the way. 

“Help me get it open,” he tells the other Iron Man. 

Together they manage to pull open the glass, pull Steve carefully from the cables. He falls right into Tony’s arms, gasps and shakes as he breathes and wakes.

“To… ny…” he says weakly and there’s recognition, but no telling if this is the Captain America he’d adored all his life or the Steve Rogers he’d married in Irondale.

“Found you,” Tony whispers, burying his face in his neck and breathing in his scent. Steve smells of disinfectants, metal and oil, sweaty leather and kevlar. “Found you.”

Steve groans and he can barely stand. Tony holds him, doesn’t care what Steve will think about it. There’s a tear rolling down his chee and he doesn’t care about that either. “How, how did you… find me?”

“Long story, Cap,” he says and together they pull Steve from the lab. Before they leave he pushes a vile labeled “Wiedergeburtsserum” into the other Tony’s hands and says: “Keep that. Might come in handy. Torch the rest.”

* * *

It takes Steve a while to recover but with the serum he’s up in a couple of hours. 

“Did you seriously search the multiverse for a needle in a haystack?”

“You’re not a needle,” Tony snaps. “You’re Captain America.”

Steve folded his arms in front of his chest and watched him seriously. “Not Steve?”

“Of course, you’re Steve.”

“Took your time.”

Tony blinks and is about to launch into an explanation of how he’d been trapped too and gotten lucky. Then it sinks in and he says: “Not the reaction I was expecting.”

But Steve’s already there kissing him tenderly. 

“You remember?”

“Everything. From the day I walked into Irondale.I wanted to pull you out, instead I was pulled in.”

“What you went to my crazy brother…?”

“Not exactly,” Steve says. “Same result though.”

“You came looking for me… and you stayed? Did you _know_ the whole time?”

Steve shrugs apologetically but then smiles. “I’m sorry. I just… I needed you to wake up and then I couldn’t wake up anymore.”

“Why did you never… before that, why did you never tell me?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I don’t deserve this!” he nearly shouts. “Why did you try and get me back?”

“I love you, you idiot!” Steve’s voice rises to the same level as Tony’s and they end up staring at each other angrily until they both realize what this means.

“We got married. What does that mean now?”

“Second chance,” Steve says.

“Third really,” Tony adds.

Steve takes his hand and squeezes his fingers, pulls him closer into a hug, then into kiss and this time it feels real, feels like the dream, feels like this is what he’s been missing and craving. They explore each other like it’s new and something they did countless times before.

“I love you,” Tony whispers. “Did from the start.”

Steve kisses his brow.

“Let’s go home. To our real home.”

“Together,” Tony agrees and does not let go of Steve’s hand. 

After a few days of rest they would continue their search and Tony is no longer in a rush.

Home is here with them as long as they are together.


End file.
